Time Race – Vault 17

THIS GAME HAS NOW CLOSED
Time Race – Vault 17.
Location: Bury
Game Date 13/09/2017.
Team: Amy & Ian

Theme:
“It was 30 years ago that the first bomb dropped. The war lasted just 18 days. You were lucky…you made it to Vault 17. In the Vault, generations have been born and raised in the dark. Vault 17 has become your home.

That was at least until today. The Vault’s final power core has decayed so far that the Vault scientists believe that there’s only 60 minutes of power left. If you and your team don’t take the risk and make it to the wasteland, the Vault will become your tomb, as the Vault door is too heavy to manually operate. Will you make it out in time?”

Theming was fantastic, immersive and incredibly well done, heavy metal doors and rotting mildew ridden walls only added to the feeling of being trapped in a post apocalyptic world.
The room generally is large and would easily accommodate groups of 6, it is maze like though and is a journey to discover where each door is going to lead! There are moments of small spaces within the game however, something to be of note if any of your team are claustrophobic, however the game play makes these tight spaces avoidable for anyone of a claustrophobic nature.
There are moments of darkness within the game but for the most part the light is good. Light sources are provided, but only 1 per team!
An excellent soundtrack rounded out the complete dedication to this rooms theme, with a radio broadcast playing throughout the hour, and time updates throughout.
With nods to Fallout, this room will please anyone who is a fan, or who likes post-apocalyptic themes!

Game Play:
This game is strictly linear, and only one puzzle is available to work on at a time due to the nature of the design.
This is generally OK, yet if you get stuck anywhere it can be hard to get out of the brain lock as there is no other puzzle to focus on for a few moments to clear your brain.
The puzzles were mostly logic/mental, word & “doing stuff” puzzles, I say doing stuff as they weren’t necessarily physical, but things you would undertake in a real-life situation, which was excellent.
The puzzles were difficult, and there were a couple of puzzles that required logic leaps to mesh all the pieces together, it was like a few of the puzzles were mini-meta-puzzles! (we did speak to the owner about these and there could be potential to streamline these puzzles in the future) – once the logic leaps were hurdled over, the puzzles became clear and enjoyable. (and I am sure there will be people who play who don’t find these logic leaps to be as blocking as we did!)
The flow of the game was OK, with it being so linear it tended to be a bit of a slow burner, we never felt like we were gathering any speed as the nature of the puzzles makes you slow down and think (and think HARD at that!) There are a couple of nice twists in the game play, and lots of surprises.
I can imagine that this game could go 2 ways with bigger groups, it would either be a case of lots of hands make light work, or too many cooks spoil the broth. It would be interesting to watch a maximum capacity group to see how the linearity affects them.
It was probably the most Ian and I had stuck together in a room for every puzzle in a long time! Usually we do have a “divide and conquer” approach to rooms, only coming together for meta-puzzles or tricker puzzles.
Enthusiasts, take a 4. This is a hard, tasking room. Newbies…. I would honestly get a good few rooms under your belt before venturing into Vault 17. It’s a hard, hard game!

Game Host:
Daniel was our game host and was absolutely smashing! So incredibly passionate and enthusiastic, we chatted for a long time after the game and he has some incredible ideas up his sleeve! He ran our game well and delivered lots of hints (without us even asking, which is how we like to play!)

Did we escape?
Erm… No. *sad face* – it was a truly fair and square defeat! The room just beat us this time!